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No Wallflower

February 5, 2009

The R. & B. singer Etta James has been making headlines for a mini-Christian-Bale moment of her own: last week in Seattle, she lashed out at Beyoncé for singing “At Last,” one of James’s signature songs (and one Beyoncé performed in the film “Cadillac Records,” where she played James) to President Obama at the Inauguration. “I tell you that woman he had singing for him, singing my song, she gonna get her ass whupped,” James said. Later she elaborated. “I can’t stand Beyoncé. She had no business singing my song that I been singing forever.”

This is a particularly unfortunate feud, because the two women have so much in common. 1. Crazy first names: James’s real name is Jamesetta Hawkins, and I’m pretty sure there’s no one else named Beyoncé.

Well, maybe that’s the whole list. One woman is a rough-sounding, sometimes rough-looking rhythm-and-blues survivor who has battled alcoholism and drug addiction and even spent time in a mental hospital; her personal volatility has always been matched by outsized vocal performances and a deep commitment to interpretive singing. The other one is a stunningly beautiful, mostly prefabricated, but also supremely talented pop star who has, for her entire career, stayed near the top of the charts—oh, and she’s also been a successful film star. The differences between them are so extreme, in fact, that casting Beyoncé as James in “Cadillac Records” seemed like a travesty, even though James seemed O.K. with it at the time. Will the feud last? Will James issue a statement to the effect that she was misunderstood and loves the younger singer? Who knows? Meanwhile, here is James covering the Eagles’ “Take it to the Limit,” in a TV performance from 1980.